Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
For startups, figuring out marketing and sales in the best of times can be difficult. So this situation is putting additional pressure on companies — and making it even more challenging to figure out what to do. In an effort to alleviate some of that stress, PIE has invited mentor in residence Kasey Jones to the PIE Crowdcast channel get your questions answered.
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For startups, each and every potential customer seems like a must-win situation. But sometimes winning the account can be even worse than losing it. Or can waste a ton of time — your most valuable resource — for your company. But how do you tell who to qualify and who to disqualify? A few folks from the startup community are seeking to help answer that question with Ongoing Disqualification as a Sales Differentiator.
For many startups, selling is a big challenge. You’ve worked hard to build something. You’re super proud of what you’ve created. And it clearly solves a problem. Why won’t people just buy it? Why do you have to sell them on it? Well, sooner or later, you’re going to need to sell. And PDX Startup Sales Acceleration is looking to help. With PDX #SalesStack. Read More
I know, I know. It seems like I’m falling into a bit of Jive fanboi-ism. But man oh man, if these folks aren’t rolling out one impressive announcement after another these days. And in a day and age where we continue to get doom and gloom about the economy and business prospects, these Jive announcements are like a little ray of sunshine.
Last week they were taking wing with Lufthansa and this week Jive announced that they had signed Toshiba’s sales team and resellers to power a new community designed to improve sales communications and collaboration called Toshiba eXCHANGE. Read More
Portland-based Jive Software recently announced that they have hired John McCracken as Senior Vice President of Sales. McCracken comes to Jive most recently from Inovis, a maker of supply chain management solutions. Prior to Inovis, he worked for Jive board member Tony Zingale at Mercury Interactive. Mercury was acquired by HP in 2006.
Jive CEO Dave Hersh says, “John is a hugely talented sales leader who has worked with most of our other execs during his time at Mercury.”
The company has also announced that Bill Lanfri has joined its Board. According to his bio:
Some of his more recent experience includes Operating Partner at Accel Partners from 2000 – 2003, during which time he served as CEO of the Accel / Sequoia investment Big Bear Networks from 2000 to 2001. Before joining Accel, he served in 1998 and 1999 as CEO of Avanex Corporation (NASDAQ: AVNX). Prior to Avanex, he was a founding investor and key advisor to RedBack Networks (NASDAQ: RBAK). He has served on numerous boards in both advisory and initial funding capacities, including network security company Network Alchemy, acquired by Nokia Corporation in early 2000.
For more on Jive’s leadership, see the bios of the management team and the Board.